On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 12:21:03PM -0800, Sean L. Palmer wrote: > Why has HTML been out for many many years, and yet programming languages > still use plain ASCII text exclusively? Don't we have similar needs as > other electronic document manipulators? >
Because HTML was designed as a language for constructing hypertext documents. It's (moderately) good at that. It would be terrible for constructing programs (if you're not convinced, try reading HTML e-mail in a text-based mail reader sometime). This is not to say that we *shouldn't* take advantage of technology going beyond ASCII text for expressing programs, just that HTML would be entirely the wrong technology. -- Kirsten Chevalier * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Often in error, never in doubt "The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth."--Camus http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~krc/ _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
